Flex those mental muscles and join Cam Robinson on a journey of discovery in Reality Check, the show that investigates the science behind your favourite games, and spawns a few wild theories of its own.

guys this stuff is very painfull to animals ive heard ex workers of these rat brain things theyre not really pleasrable as they say its painful to animals thats why they wont do them on bigger animals cuze the reaction of bigger animals are very noticable than a rat

This is another illustration of the implementation of
technology in negative ways. Human beings are by nature social
animals. We thrive best when engaged in meaningful connections.
Dogs are very much the same.Unfortunately,
modern technological development tends to focus on either efficient methods of
greater disconnection, or simply superficial interaction (rather than
meaningful connection).While treats do
help train dogs, their motivation lies in the loyalty and connection to their
handler.This is another technological
striving which sees such social bonds as a hindrances to be overcome, instead
of fundamental traits to be valued and enhanced.

the thing is, to train an animal like that you need to establish an relationship to the animal, you have to gain its trust ... and then you turn on that trust and it goes boom ... doing it electronicily like there is only the most direct way to circumwent this trust ... the cheapest resource on this planet is life ... it never stops to recreate itself ...

This sort of thing in a game like CoD is one matter, but does anyone else find the whole concept of remote control animals rather dodgy from an ethical standpoint? How can it be OK to stick electrodes into a rat's brain to control its movements? It must be terrifying for the rat, and surely if this sort of experiment was being conducted on humans there would be uproar? Personally I think that sometimes science would be better off to just leave well alone.

Same equipment, a bullet proof vest, a camera, earpiece to receive orders, a vibrating thing on the neck to receive silence orders, googles, thermal vision; you name it; aparently all of that incredible stuff are pretty much real

Can't wait for this stuff to come to the consumer market. This time next year when I take my dog out for a hike, I'll really be lounging in front of my TV with a ps3 controller directing its every move.

Maybe Seb mentions this in the video (I'm about to watch!) but I read an article about some scientific studies that are underway involving manipulating the minds of rats to assist in search and rescue efforts in cases where buildings collapse.

They hook a probe up to the rats brain and send it electro-pulses to tell it which way to move while it's searching rubble. They can practically remote control all the movement of the rat and watch it on a video feed. Very interesting stuff, but so far it has only been successful under controlled circumstances, no rat search and rescues efforts in the field just yet.

No, Seb. We don't want to develop a pleasure button for humans. That's like the quickest way to creating a degenerate. Even as a substitution to pain medications, I find any sort of cybernetic brain implants designed to control the inputs and outputs of a human being to be extremely troubling.

fact: digs are trained to treat weapons as toys, they even wave their tail when they find them. dogs that find drugs are actually adicted to them, and they NEED to find them, that's why they are so good at finding them. but if you want a killing machine, why not traing a lion or a tiger? why not a jaguar? id love to see the results in you tube, specially when the trainers try to make them understand "human".

politically incorrect comment of today: seriously, training dogs to kill it's like training kids, so why it's ok with dogs and not with third world kids?. i feel more sorry bout the dogs. because kids have a choice when they become adults, where as dogs. nope, they don't have a choice but to obey the genes that say "be loyal to your owner even if your life is at stake" and that's so lame to do with the only animal that accepts the human as "superior". or alpha dog if you want it. alpha my ass.

so, alien invaders: i support your extermination on the humans, just please start your killing with this guys. all hail cockroache heirs to the earth!!

@ZombieGuyGeorge Narcotic detection dogs are not addicted to drugs; they see the searching for drugs, just as with searching for people and explosives, as a game with a treat as a reward.

Also saying that a soldier has a choice is an extremely naïve point of view. Most soldiers fight to protect their family from the enemy or the possible threat they might pose. Do not forget that most wars are not fought by highly trained and government payed GI's, but by your average men and woman who have no choice; either it is fight, or flight, and that means an end to the lives of many friends and families, so they rather choose to fight for their freedom and/or safety.

@ciofy1 @zombiecat99 If you look closely at the history, you will realize that humans 1) Created countless wars killing billions. 2) Destroyed our environment. 3) Wiped out tons of species from this earth through industrialization and hunting. 4) Modified genetic aspects of our food, plants, insects, and yet all of that ultimately affects our genes as well. 5) Created nuclear weapons which endanger billions of humans themselves, as well as little of animal and plant diversity there is. And if you look even closer, you'll realize that this earth can survive and flourish in unlimited ways if humans never existed(and the same diseases would never be present, yes the same diseases of which 99 percent were created in biological experiments through history). However the opposite is true. Before you say that animals are not important, think of their extinction over time and how it affects our environment. You really are a fucking dumbass sir.

@Cxera something-something, i said. at least in my country they are into somthing-something.

say, the soldiers in the game are average joes or high trained gi's? can't really say, someone please explain it to me :(

and, so desert storm and the gulf war, is it fighting for what, our families? so they can have more oil? because u.s. uses around five houndred thousand times the oil used in mexico, cuba, colombia and most central and south america, just because. oh and electric cars are available since 1950, so that's not a reason. and 9/11 was an inside job. im more concerned about the enemy within than the poor people in bagdad.